Super Tuesday Leaves Many Questions Unanswered

During every presidential primary election cycle, caucuses and primaries are held to determine the best candidate to represent either the Democrats or Republicans in hopes to win the prestigious position in the White House.

Super Tuesday is a special and sometimes greatly significant day, the day in which the largest number of states hold said primary elections. People vote to get their candidate of choice the greatest amount of delegates in the hopes that that candidate will ultimately be chosen to represent the party during the general election.

A total of 416 delegates were up for grabs, 18.2 percent of all possible delegates, with the states of Alaska (24), Georgia (76), Idaho (32), Massachusetts (38), North Dakota (25), Ohio (63), Oklahoma (40), Tennessee (55), Vermont (17), and Virginia (46) in participation. The March 6 Super Tuesday may not have been as decisive as some had hoped for in cementing a particular candidate for the Republican Party.

While Mitt Romney gained the most delegates (225) and carried the most states (6), candidates Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich did take significant chunks away from Romney (Santorum with 89 delegates and 3 states, Gingrich with 80 delegates and the state of Georgia). Ron Paul ended up with 21 delegates, yet carried no states of his own.

Some states are winner-take-all, meaning that the candidate with the highest percentage of votes wins all the delegates of the state (like Idaho), while other states, such as North Dakota, use a proportion system, which gives out delegates in proportion to the percentage of votes a specific candidate received in the election. The proportion contest can become even trickier — certain states require a candidate to gain at least a certain percentage of the vote to be allocated any delegates at all.

What this Super Tuesday season has shown is that the race for the Republican presidential candidate is by no means over. Though Romney keeps looking stronger and stronger, Super Tuesday shows that not everyone in the party is on board with him. This may draw out the primary season into the months of April, May, June or even up to the convention in July. Only time will tell what will happen.

All that can be said is that it’s not over until it’s over … and unfortunately, Super Tuesday just was not enough to get the fat lady to sing.